[imagesource: Lee-Ann Olwage]

If you’re interested in understanding the inner workings of South Africa’s Numbers gangs (the 26s, 27s, and 28s), Jonny Steinberg’s The Number is essential reading.

But you’re busy (spending hours scrolling through social media on your phone) and don’t have time to read an entire book.

In light of that, the testimony this week of Jeremy Vearey, who headed detectives in the Western Cape until his firing last year, is a good place to start.

Vearey testified in the trial of 20 alleged members of the Terrible Josters at the Western Cape High Court and shed light on gang practices.

The former top cop is well versed in the topic due to being held in the B Section of Pollsmoor Maximum Security Prison on terrorism charges during the apartheid years.

Pollsmoor’s B Section is where the various gangs’ senior leaders were held.

He started off talking about the history of the gangs and their recruitment process, reports The Daily Maverick:

Part of the recruitment process involved a potential gang recruit choosing a banana, which symbolised a penis, or curry, which symbolised strength.

Vearey on Tuesday testified that if a potential recruit chose the banana, he was deemed a “wyfie” (female) who would serve as a wife to other ranks of gangsters.

Image: Genevieve Serra

On Thursday, at the start of proceedings, [suspected group leader, Elton] Lenting and a few other accused held up apples and waved them at Vearey — apparently showing him they chose apples over bananas and perhaps distancing themselves from his testimony about “wyfies.”

Due to having fought with Umkhonto weSizwe, the ANC’s armed wing, Vearey was granted certain insight into operations.

Claiming to be a part of the Numbers without going through the recruitment process could have dire consequences. In some instances, someone making that false claim could be gang-raped and thus branded a wyfie.

Each of the three Numbers gangs also has a unique function:

The 26s gang represented the “economics sector” or “business people”, tasked with getting hold of money by using their brains, while the 27s were “your men of blood, they are soldiers… [who] only wage war”…

Meanwhile, the 28s, Vearey explained, were “a paramilitary structure”, and the “political authority” or “the parliament”…

Image: n4mb3rs.com

The 27s acted as a type of mediator between the 26s and 28s.

“Only the 27s can wage war to settle a dispute,” Vearey testified. “But where there are no 27s, then we have a problem.”

Vearey went on to outline the uniforms worn by high-ranking leaders (called ‘lords’), and how hard it is to leave a gang (“There’s a saying in prison — there’s a gate in, there’s no gate out.”).

Per News24, the 20 alleged Terrible Josters gang members “are on trial for 10 murders, a string of attempted murders, drugs, weapons, arson, and threatening witnesses who were going to testify against them”.

[sources:dailymaverick&news24]